They are talking with Taliban, we are fighting

THE announcement by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the United States and other foreign powers were engaged in talks with the Taliban about a possible settlement to the decade long war in Afghanistan has not surprised the observers who have been closely watching the developments in the war torn country. Such leaks had been coming out for quite sometime and even US media that is regularly briefed by the officials had reported about the dialogue with Taliban through back channels.

According to reports American envoys have met Tayeb Agha, a former close aide to Mullah Omar, several times in Qatar. Diplomats have already said there have been months of preliminary talks between the two sides, and Karzai, who is a strong advocate of peace talks, has long said that Afghans are in contact with insurgent groups. Despite hopes that talks with the Taliban could provide the political underpinning for the US staged withdrawal from Afghanistan, the discussions are still not at the stage where they can be a deciding factor. However the statement by Hamid Karzai makes it clear that formal talks between Taliban and US have started because of understandable reasons and the foremost of which is mounting pressure of public opinion on President Obama that US must immediately withdraw as the number of bodybags going back is increasing and there is also negative impact of war on the US economy as around $ 110 billions are being spent on it annually. US Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, told PBS Newshour on Friday that he was expecting a “substantial” reduction in troop numbers from Afghanistan. In this perspective the question arises that while US has started dialogue why Pakistan cannot start formal and announced dialogue with the Afghan resistance and the Pakistani Taliban. What is more regrettable is that while Washington is continuing dialogue, Islamabad is being pressurized to launch more operations against Taliban particularly in North Waziristan. Regrettably some in Pakistan are also coming out with arguments in support of US demand. We think the statement of Karzai that US and NATO troops are in Afghanistan for their own national interests and using his country’s soil, should be an eye opener for the policy makers in Islamabad and we must also start the dialogue process with Taliban not only to bring peace on our side of the border but also to protect our strategic interests.